


The Chill In Our Hearts

by nostalgia



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Dark!River, F/M, dark!Doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 02:25:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2007480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgia/pseuds/nostalgia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time she sees him he's torturing a Dalek for information.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chill In Our Hearts

The first time she sees him he's torturing a Dalek for information. She stands a few metres away, watching him work and admiring his dedication. He's reaching inside the casing with some sort of sonic device, and the Dalek is screaming. 

“I'd turn the frequency down a bit if I were you,” she offers, conversationally. “Otherwise it's going to die before it can really suffer.”

He doesn't look up from his task, just nods and makes the adjustment. The Dalek doesn't talk, of course, and eventually he just rips it from its shell and throws it to the ground. He can't be a professional, losing his cool like that.

He looks her up and down, slow and calculating. His gaze lingers just a moment too long at her breasts, and when he finally looks into her eyes she's smiling. 

“What's so amusing?” he asks.

“You.” She offers her hand. “I'm River Song.”

He ignores the hand and says “This ship's going to blow up in about ten minutes, so if you don't want to die you should leave.” 

“What's your name?” she asks. 

“Why do you care? We're never going to see each other again.” He moves past her and she follows him down a corridor without speaking. His voice is cold and but his anger is hot and burning. He stops at a large blue box and says, “I don't take passengers.”

“I like you,” she says, cheerfully.

“No one likes me.” He opens the door of the box and steps inside, leaving her standing outside it. River tries the door but it won't open for her. Eventually she shrugs and activates her teleport. No point getting killed for a pretty boy.

 

She sees him again six months later, in a Dalek prison camp on a lonely asteroid. He's liberating the slaves before she's had a chance to do it herself, which if nothing else seems like awfully bad manners. 

“Fancy meeting you here,” she says.

He stares at her for a good thirty seconds before he replies. “Oh, it's you.”

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Causing chaos. What about you?”

“The same. Things are about to get dangerous,” she says. “I don't need amateurs getting in the way.”

“I'm not an amateur,” he says with just the slightest hint of a smile. 

“Well, you're certainly not a professional. Are you even armed?”

“Not as such.”

River looks at him with renewed interest. “Are you suicidal?” He wouldn't be the first person she's met who wants to go out fighting. “What sort of an idiot goes into a Dalek prison camp without a weapon?”

“The sort of idiot who doesn't need a gun.” He nods at her own gun, holstered at her hip. “Those things are useless.”

“Hardly. Would you like me to demonstrate?”

“I'd have that thing off you before you could pull the trigger.” 

She laughs. “I've heard that one before.”

“You haven't heard it from me, though.”

River looks at him seriously and decides that, yes, he really is that stupid.

 

 

Three weeks later she's standing on a burning ship and her teleport bracelet has stopped working. She doesn't panic, but she's relieved when something materialises around her just before the Cyberfleet disintegrates. And there he is, her nameless pretty boy.

“Are you stalking me?” she asks. 

“Don't be stupid, River.”

She smiles. “You remember my name, then. I must have made some sort of impression.”

“I've just got a good memory, it's nothing personal.” He stands at the controls of his ship and watches her as she starts to explore. “I thought you only did Daleks.”

“I'm branching out,” she says. “One evil cyborg is much like another, after all.”

“Saviour complex?”

She shakes her head. “No, I'm a psychopath. Saving people is just something that happens when I'm killing the bad guys. And you?” 

“I make my own fun,” he says. 

“Torturing Daleks?”

He shrugs. “Why not?”

“What's your name?” she asks. “It might help if we're going to keep running into each other.”

“I'm the Doctor,” he says. “And yes, I realise that's a bit ironic with all the killing.” He turns back to the controls. “Where do you want me to drop you off?”

“So soon? We've only just got acquainted.” 

“I told you, I don't take passengers.”

She nods. “Alright. Can you take me somewhere I can get a decent teleport device?”

“Of course.” 

 

She doesn't go looking, and it's almost a year before she sees him again. She saves his life, partly because he's interesting and partly because she hates feeling like she owes him something for saving hers. This time she takes care to follow him into his ship before he can stop her. 

“How do you get the inside into the outside?” she asks, closing the door behind her. 

He ignores her and pulls a few levers and presses a few buttons. “I could just dematerialise and leave you here.”

“But you won't,” she says. She moves into his personal space, pulls him close with his ridiculous braces, and kisses him. He doesn't try to stop her.

They end up fucking on the floor, graceless and without speaking. River rides him until she comes twice, and she likes that he can keep up with her silent demands. 

“So tell me,” she says as she dresses, “why do you hate Daleks?”

“Do I need a reason?”

“Yes, you do.”

“I lost someone. I gave too many second chances. Call it revenge. What about you?”

She replies calmly as she buttons her blouse. “I was taken from my parents and raised to be a weapon. Killing Daleks is what I was made to do, but I do enjoy it as well.”

He watches her silently for a while, and when her clothes are on he says, “We could work together.”

“I don't need a partner,” she says, shaking her head. She hadn't expected him to be so needy.

“I thought you liked me,” he protests.

River laughs. “Never mistake orgasm for affection, Sweetie.”

He drops her off in a Dalek-infested star system with a piece of paper that's supposedly psychic and says, “Keep in touch.”

 

She has to use the paper a month later, when things get a bit out of hand. The Doctor shows up to rescue her and she covers her weakness by claiming that she had ulterior motives. 

“You were about to be killed, River.”

“I just wanted some attention,” she lies. He doesn't entirely believe her, as far as she can tell, but he doesn't argue when she says she's summoned him because she's feeling frisky. This time they make it to a bedroom, and the sex is good enough that she almost - _almost_ \- thinks about taking him up on his offer of a partnership. 

She isn't particularly bothered when he calls out another woman's name in his sleep, not least because she's pretty sure that this Clara person is dead. When he starts to cry she turns away to avoid second-hand embarrassment and in case he wants to talk about it. She likes him, but there are limits, for God's sake.

 

He starts turning up more regularly, following her across the galaxy like a lost puppy. His crush on her is quite sweet, all things considered, but she doesn't want him getting any ideas. When he tries tenderness in bed she scratches and bites, and she learns that he likes the pain. Whatever he's punishing himself for – she has never asked for details – it's enough to appeal to her sadistic side. 

Despite the unwanted affection he remains ruthless in battle, and that's enough for her to let him hang around. He's useful, most of the time. 

Two months after they've killed the Dalek Emperor she wakes up on his ship, and she hurts enough to know that she almost died this time. The look in his eyes is unmistakeably adoring, and River knows she has to draw the line somewhere. 

“Tell me about Clara,” she says as she sits up. 

He retreats into himself just as expected. “I don't remember offering to tell you anything.”

She manages to smile like she cares. “I just want to help you.”

He stares at her until realisation dawns. “You think I'm falling for you.”

“Aren't you?”

“I don't do that sort of thing any more.”

“And I'd like to believe that, Doctor, really I would.”

He sits back in the armchair by the bed. “You're an amazing woman, River.”

She nods, no point denying it. “I'm also a psychopath. You're not, and the longer we're together the less use you're going to be to me. Compassion, kindness, mercy... I don't need any of those things.”

“Please,” he says. 

“You're just not my type,” she says, standing. She kisses his forehead. “You've got such a beautiful darkness in you, but it's starting to fade. I'm ruining you.”

 

He takes her to another Dalek world, gives her a vortex manipulator and something sonic that he claims isn't really a weapon. She turns away from him before he embarrass her with his emotions.

“Keep in touch,” he says. 

She doesn't.


End file.
